The Crying Game
by Lady.of.Victory.Rising
Summary: Set after Paul Anka. In a drunken moment, Jess makes a rash decision to take the easy way out. His suicide attempt barely fails... and back in Stars Hollow, Rory overhears the call to inform Luke of his hospitalization. AU Lit.
1. Howl

**Author's Note-** This story is the reason I finally got an account. I've been reading Gilmore fic for ages, and I finally got an idea for a story, and here it is. Yes, I know the concept requires Jess to be slightly OOC, but I actually think it makes sense for his character. If you want to know why, I have a very well thought-out argument for why this makes sense.

The lyrics in this chapter are from "Scream" by Kill Hannah. Fantastic band. Look them up.

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1. Howl

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Jess shoved tingling fingertips into his pockets, stalking through the nighttime streets of Philadelphia. His head was throbbing and his throat burned. Two hours and four beers had not been sufficient to erase the taste of her from his lips, and if he was honest with himself, he wasn't that interested in doing so anyway.

God, he was pathetic. If someone had told him when he was sixteen that in four years he'd be a sorry mess over a girl he'd only seen a handful of times since he was in high school, he'd have laughed derisively right in their face. But Rory Gilmore had gone and reeled him in and now he was screwed.

He had been doing alright, too. He'd been just fine for the last few years. He'd been able to distract himself with helping Matt and Chris build up Truncheon from the work-from-our-living-room operation it had been when he first met them to the respectable business it was today. His love- yes, _love_. Even after all this time apart, he still thought it deserved that label- for Rory had faded into a vague white background noise in his thoughts. When he'd been younger, he hadn't been able to block it out at all. He hadn't been able to cope with his all-consuming _need_ for her (and he didn't even mean that in the physical sense, though there was certainly that, too), and his desperation had made him rave like a madman in her presence and driven her away.

But as years passed, he'd learned to push her to the back of his thoughts. Now, she only put in an appearance in his mind's eye about four or five times a day. Five times his heart practically stopped beating from the shock her sudden presence, intangible though it was. He was living with a ghost, but it had better than it had been.

Today had brought it all rushing back. The moment he had seen her, he had fallen in love with her all over again. That was how it had always been, even when they were still together- he would be away from her for a few hours, and when he saw her again, he fell even harder. She had lingered to the end of the open house, and with each passing minute, his fragile hope that at last, _at last,_ she was coming back to him had grown. By the time they were the only two left in Truncheon, he had been confident enough of her intentions to actually risk making the first move.

And he'd been wrong. She wasn't there to be with him. She was there to _use_ him. How could he have been so stupid? He'd blown his one chance with her, and he knew that now. He should have known it before, but their story always seemed so _incomplete_, like there ought to be one last chapter...

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should have known better. Through the slight fog that was descending on his mind as an effect of the alcohol, he recalled a song he had heard once, and laughed at the appropriateness of the lyrics he had once thought melodramatic and overblown...

_Somehow I feel that it's my destiny to fall  
Get dried and hung upon a gallery wall  
Holding on by just a thread to my heart_

_So now I scream  
And hope it's a dream  
It's hard just to breathe  
When we said goodbye_

He hummed the haunting melody that accompanied the words, able to tell, even drunk, that he was off-key. He laughed bitterly. Screaming didn't help; he'd tried that in California, when the ache of letting her go was still raw and weeping. Usually alcohol numbed it for awhile, though. Tonight it wasn't helping, not even a little bit, not with the feeling of her lips fresh against his.

As he again became hyperaware of his mouth, a sudden thought knocked him literally off his feet. He sat down heavily on the pavement right where he was, staring in agonized shock at his surroundings and seeing none of it. Tonight was the first time they had kissed since that fateful night in a bedroom at some party... Had he really not kissed her in over three years?

How had he even survived this long without that? There was a time when going even twenty-four hours without kissing her was just too much (not that she'd known that). Three years he'd managed to struggle through, and he'd been (almost) alright. But now he'd had one last bittersweet taste of what he could have had, if he'd only been able to get his shit together. It was a reminder, and a brand. He was marked. For the rest of his life, he knew, what ifs would torture him (more than they already did).

Fuck, three years had been absolute agony, looking back. And how he had the rest of his life to go through.

How the hell was he going to survive?

Numbly, Jess got back to his feet and walked the last few blocks to the apartment above Truncheon. He barely gave a thought to where he was going, just moving on autopilot and paying special attention to the burning inside. He stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on the ragtag sofa in the shared living room. For some twenty minutes he stared at the wall, trying to settle the pounding in his head and the sick wrenching in his heart. He felt nauseous, dizzy. It was always like this after an encounter with her. He felt physically ill for days. Tonight, though, it felt worse than ever before.

It never occurred to him that the alcohol might be compounding the effects of his heartbreak. That thought never crossed his mind. All he knew that he was in agony, physically, emotionally, mentally, and he just wanted it to _stop_.

Swaying, he made his way to the cramped bathroom and began rummaging in the medicine cabinet, looking for some Nyquil or something else with strong depressants, to knock himself out for a few hours. Instead, he came up with a full bottle of prescription painkillers. Matthew had migraines, and the pills were his.

Jess stared at the bottle, reading the warning label that blurred before his drunken eyes. Then, without taking a second longer to think about this, he popped the lid off the pills and tipped the lot of them down his throat...

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**A/N2-** No, that's not the end! Leave a review, and I might be persuaded to post the next chapter a little sooner...


	2. Call

**Author's Note-** Wow, you guys, you are awesome. Your response to this was absolutely incredible, and I'm so touched that you were all so willing to read a story by a novice.

This chapter is a little rambling, yes, but it's _intended_ to be. I really wanted to convey a sense that Rory's thoughts are very jumbled and she's just in emotional turmoil even BEFORE... well, you'll see. But the thing is, I'm not a big believer in the "big revelation" theory of Rory realizing her feelings for Jess. I prefer the school of thought that she's always known she still had feelings for him, but was too scared of being broken like that again to act on it. My idea with this chapter was to showcase that.

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2. Call

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Rory's fingers tightened involuntarily around the steering wheel. She had driven through the night to get back to Stars Hollow for the weekend and Lane's wedding. As a result, she was exhausted, and she was only now nearing the Hartford area. _Why_ had she stayed so long in Philadelphia?

_Oh, right. It was because you wanted to see Jess_, a sinuous voice in the back of her head pointed out.

Why had she done that? Why had she willingly gone within twenty miles of him? All seeing Jess ever meant was heartache and regret. Even after all this time, he still had a powerful effect on her, and she didn't like feeling so lost and unsure of herself. He had a way of making her... question things.

Contrary to what she had told him, she had _not_ gone there to use him to cheat on Logan. That had been a bluff, and even she knew it (part of her had maybe even hoped he would call it). No, she'd just wanted to see him. _Masochist_. After reading The Subsect (and rereading... and rereading... and rereading again one more time... and then again just to be sure), she hadn't been able to get him out of her head lately. She needed to see what his life had become.

Kissing him (because no matter what she would tell anyone else later, she _had_ kissed him back) had been a mistake. She was all too aware that it was the first time they had kissed in three years, and it had unexpectedly sent little traces of electricity through her. And she was all too aware that, though she had stopped twice during the night to eat, her lips still tasted of him. Peppermint and tobacco and something spicy.

This was bad. She was letting herself go there again (if she'd ever actually left), and that was dangerous. He had ripped out a piece of her soul the last time she had lost her fight against his unique brand of gravity; she knew with absolute certainty that the next time he got tired of her, she wouldn't survive it. He was deadly to her: he was her kryptonite.

Acknowledging she still had feelings for him was surprisingly easy. But there was a difference between acknowledging it and acting on it. Jess was a part of her past that would be disaster to revisit (she had learned her lesson about second attempts from Dean, who in his own way had been a rebound himself, an adverse reaction to Jess' unsettling reappearance). No matter how enticing the idea had been as their lips met, Rory couldn't watch herself fall apart again. She had a boyfriend who loved her (_even if_, a part of her knew, _he didn't love her the way she wanted to be, wild and passionate and overwhelming_) and she loved him (right?) and that was enough.

After what felt like far too long alone with her thoughts, she pulled into Stars Hollow. Immediately she felt her cares washing away as the comforting warmth of her hometown lapped over her. She parked in the alley behind Luke's, and ran immediately into the diner.

Her mother was sitting at the counter, staring morosely into a cup of coffee. However, when Rory entered, Lorelai leapt to her feet. "Rory!" she exclaimed. "You're home!"

"And right on time, too," Rory said with a grin. "How's Lane? Is she freaking out?"

Lorelai shook her head. "Nope, she's being surprisingly calm for a first-time bride. I finally got her dress sorted, so we're good on that front. All we were missing was the maid of honor and we're all set for tomorrow!"

"Well, lucky you, here I am."

"Yes you are."

A short, happy silence ensued. The elder Gilmore was on the verge of speaking when suddenly the diner phone rang. Before Caesar could emerge from the kitchen to answer it, Lorelai leapt up from the counter and dashed around to answer the call. "Fiancée's privileges," she mouthed at her daughter before responding to the person on the other end of the line.

"No, I'm afraid he's out of town. I'm his fiancée, Lorelai. Can I take a message for him?" There was a long silence, and Lorelai's blue eyes widened visibly as her mouth tightened into a short little line of shock. "Oh, wow, I... Um, I'll call him. I think he's still in that area, so he should be able to get there quickly. Uh-huh. Bye!" She slowly replaced the phone in its cradle, staring at it.

"Mom?" Rory asked, a little pocket of worry curling up in her stomach at the expression on Lorelai's face.

Rory's voice seemed to shock her out of wherever she'd drifted away to, and her attention snapped to her daughter. Coming back to sit down next to Rory, Lorelai ran a hand through her hair in agitation. "I... wow, I don't even know how to say this," she said.

"Usually that involves moving your mouth, some breathing," Rory said, trying to use sarcasm to cover up the worry she was feeling and failing miserably as it fell flat.

"Sweetie, Jess is in the hospital," Lorelai said after a long moment.

The bottom dropped out of the world and Rory's stomach simultaneously. "What?" she asked, and even to her ears, her voice sounded breathless and gasping. "Why? What happened?"

Lorelai twisted her hands nervously. "He... he tried to kill himself," she said. "The guy said he took a bunch of pills and..." She trailed away with a shrug.

Rory stared into her mother's face, searching for answers as the meaning behind the words penetrated. Jess... and suicide? The two ideas didn't mesh well in her mind; for a man who usually took the easy way out of difficult situations, he had never struck her as someone who would just give up. And what would make him attempt it in the first place? His life was finally on track, he had done _amazing_ things, he had wonderful friends, he had everything he could possibly want except... A horrible thought occurred to her: was it because of her? Jess was obviously single, and he obviously still cared for her. But... killing himself over her? That simply didn't happen in real life! It couldn't be that, there must be another explanation.

She didn't even realize she'd started crying until a tear dripped from her chin and landed on the palm of her hand, which was lying limply in her lap. "Oh my god," she said quietly. "Oh no." Quickly, her mother reached across and pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back comfortingly.

"Shh, hey, Rory, shh..."

The soft sound of her mother's voice snapped her back to reality before Rory could go completely to pieces. "I'm okay," she said abruptly, jerking back from the embrace and wiping hurriedly at her burning eyes. "I'm okay, I just... need to go back to Philadelphia."

Lorelai stared. "_Back_ to Philadelphia...?"

Rory had already picked up her purse from the counter. "I was there yesterday, Mom!" she exclaimed, her voice rising in volume and pitch as she fought to contain her emotions. "Less than twelve hours ago I was _talking_ to him, and I swear he wasn't... I've got to see him, I've got to understand why... I need to make sure he's okay, I... I just... I have to go." Words wouldn't come, she couldn't articulate what it was that she wanted, not that she was really sure she even knew what that was.

"Tell Lane I'll be home in time for the wedding tomorrow, okay?"

And with that, she walked out the door and returned to her car. For a moment, she simply sat there in the driver's seat, staring at the windshield but not seeing through it. The idea of Jess attempting suicide- well, the idea of Jess dying _at all_- was bizarrely terrifying to her. She couldn't picture a world without him in it somewhere.

With that thought, the tears started again, and what little composure she'd managed to scrape together in the diner crumbled away and she broke down, burying her face in the steering wheel and not even bothering to stifle her sobs.

Once her eyes were finally dry once more, some ten minutes later, she put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the alley, heading back the way she had just come...

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**A/N2-** And there you have it: chapter 2! Subsequent chapters will be longer; I just wanted to use these first two to illustrate where Jess and Rory's heads were at the moment.


	3. Cry

**Author's Note-** An alternate title for this chapter might be "In Which Matthew Acts As The Voice of All Of Those Poor Lit Shippers Who Thought Rory Was Pretty Cruel/Insensitive/Stupid When It Came To Jess." I considered putting that in as the title, but firstly it was too long and secondly I had a plan for all the chapter titles and that didn't quite fit in...

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3. Cry

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The doors to the ICU burst forth before her, and Rory had a fuzzy, half-formed thought somewhere in the back of her mind about grief and forces of nature, but she was a girl on a mission, and her focus didn't allow for drifting ruminating just now. She spied the two men she faintly recalled from the open house sitting on a pair of chairs across from the nurse's station, and made right for them.

_"Is he alright?"_ she meant to ask, but before she could get a word in, the shorter one, a tense young man with sandy hair and unmemorable features leapt to his feet.

"What the fucking hell are _you_ doing here?" he demanded.

Rory stared. "I... what?"

"You heard me," the blonde said, glaring at her with a look of absolute venom in his face. "What makes you think you have the fucking _right_--"

At that moment, the taller, dark-skinned man intervened, placing a restraining hand against his friend's shoulder. "Hey, man, chill," he said with a warning look. "There's history, okay? She has as much right to be here as us."

"No, she doesn't!" the shorter one insisted. "It's her damn fault he went all Hemingway on us!"

Rory almost collapsed then and there as the full implications of the young man's statement sunk in. So Jess' attempt to kill himself _was_ because of her rejection? Only barely managing to lock her knees in time to keep her suddenly jellylike legs from folding, she was unable to stop the tears that began to leak from beneath her lashes.

The other man took in the sight of her swaying on her feet, and more than likely noticed the telltale red rims around her eyes from several times that she had begun to cry on the way up to Philadelphia. He let out a barely noticeable sigh, then turned back to his irate companion. "Okay Matt, that's enough. Go... somewhere. Cool off, whatever, okay? Can't you see the girl's upset?" With one last scathing look, the short one stalked away.

When he had disappeared around a corner, Rory turned to her rescuer and offered him an approximation of a smile.

"Don't worry about Matthew," he assured her. "He's normally a pretty cool guy, but he comes on pretty strong sometimes, and he's upset, obviously... Anyway, I'm Chris Matherson."

"Rory Gilmore," she replied, and was horrified to realize that her voice cracked and quavered, still hesitating on the verge of tears. Very quickly, she dropped down into the seat that Matt had vacated a few minutes before, folding her hands tightly in her lap to keep them from shaking.

Chris took the seat next to her. After a brief silence, he tentatively asked, "Are you okay? 'Cause no offense, but you kinda look like shit."

She nodded, biting her lips. "Yeah, I just... I drove up from Connecticut and it's a long drive and... and I never should have come here in the first place!" she exclaimed, losing her battle with the tears at last. "If I had known it would lead to this, I promise you I never would have come. I just, I wanted to see him so much, make sure he was doing okay. I didn't know he still cared about me that much... I didn't know he _ever_ cared about me that much! You've got to believe me, I never meant to hurt him, I just--"

"Hey, hey!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands in a 'please stop now' gesture. "You don't need to justify it to me. This isn't your fault. Jess is the idiot who went and took a whole bottle of prescription painkillers."

Rory's heart wrenched and she broke down completely, burying her face in her hands and sobbing.

"I... oh jeez, hey, I didn't mean to..." Chris said, clearly at a loss for what to do about the hysterical girl huddled on the chair next to him. He opted for patting her awkwardly on the shoulder and making a slightly desperate shushing noise. "Hey, please don't freak out," he pleaded. "Jess is going to be fine, okay? They think he'll make a full recovery."

She jerked her head in acknowledgement, and her crying quieted; however, the tears did not stop by any means. She wiped impatiently at her eyes with the heel of her hands, taking several deep shuddering breaths. Mascara-laced tears continued to run down her cheeks, leaving fresh tracks along the places where she had wiped away the marks from the last bout of crying. With an abashed glance at Chris, she whispered, "Sorry. I hate the idea of him..." She didn't have to finish the statement. They both knew what she feared.

* * *

Luke arrived about twenty minutes after Rory did, looking disheveled and more than a little wild. He stopped short at the sight of Rory hunched up in the uncomfortable waiting room chair. "Rory?" he asked, stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the diner when Mom got the call," she said by way of explanation.

He nodded, as if it made perfect sense. To him, it did. A part of him, way down deep where Lorelai would never see it, held the secret hope that his quasi-daughter and his nephew would finally get over their issues and try to make it work. He knew that neither had really ever let go of the other. Seeing Rory here was only to be expected.

He glanced over his shoulder at Matthew, Jess' friend, whom he had run into outside the hospital ward. The young man was staring at his shoes, looking embarrassed. Luke wondered why.

Chris, the other partner in Truncheon, rose to his feet and walked behind Luke to where Matt was standing. "Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked, an obstinate look on his face. He all but dragged the shorter man away down the hallway.

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"What the hell is wrong with you?" Chris demanded once they were out of sight.

"What's wrong with _me_? What's wrong with her?" Matt exclaimed, but Chris could tell that his heart was no longer in it anymore. All malice had vanished from his voice; now he was just holding onto his stance for stubbornness' sake. "She comes around and whatever shit happens, then Jess turns up at the bar looking like he got run over by a truck and being ultra-touchy about her- more than usual, anyway- and the next thing we know he's passed out on the bathroom floor and we're just supposed to _take_ it? She messed him up!"

Chris raised his eyebrows. "Tell me, did you get a good look at her in there just now?" he asked in a dangerously even tone. "It's a damn good thing we've got modern medicine so we know he's just unconscious and not dead or anything, or we'd have a nice little _Romeo and Juliet_ situation on our hands. Yeah, whatever happened last night messed Jess up, but she's just as bad, so just drop it, will you?"

Matt sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know," he mumbled. Glancing in the direction they had come, he developed a thoughtful expression. "You know, he never did tell us what happened with her all those years ago."

"Didn't tell _you_, you mean," Chris said smugly.

"What? You got something out of him?"

The black man shrugged casually. "He's not likely to talk to you, is he? You're a world-class Type A anal nuthole, aren't you?" he teased. "It takes a more subtle approach to get Jess Mariano to actually talk about anything serious." Matt smacked him on the arm, and Chris shot him a friendly punch back, smirking.

"So, what did you find out?" Matt asked, rubbing his shoulder and glaring balefully at his friend.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Chris asked, grinning smugly.

Matt's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Chris shrugged. "Eh, I didn't actually get the full story. Mostly the CliffNotes version. They met in high school, he fell hard for her, they went out for awhile, then he blew out of town without saying goodbye. Haven't seen each other much since then."

"And that would've been, what, three years back?" Matt calculated.

Chris nodded. "About, yeah."

The shorter man's eyebrows climbed up into his hairline. "Damn," he muttered. "That's a long time to carry a torch for some girl. No _wonder_ he's such a good writer! He's like the ultimate, universal source of all angst!"

Chris snorted. "Whatever you say," he said, rolling his eyes at his friend's choice of phrase. "But you're right, though. It's weird, them still being so... I dunno... _connected_."

"Some people just never move on," Matthew said wisely.

"C'mon, let's get back there," Chris said, now satisfied that he had suitably chastised his temper-prone friend. "They should have news any minute now."

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"What took you to long to get here?" Rory asked as Luke took the seat recently vacated by Chris. "I found out hours ago, and you were already in Philadelphia."

He ran a hand across his jaw, letting out a long breath. "Didn't hear the phone," he explained. "By the time we got to the hotel, I had fifteen messages from your mom."

"Ah."

Luke cast a sideways glance at her. "You okay?" he asked.

Rory nodded unconvincingly. When he continued to look at her, she sighed and shook her head 'no'. "I'm really not, Luke," she told him quietly. "I'm scared. They said he'll be okay, but what if he's _not_? What will I do? How can I live with this, knowing it's because I--" She gulped in several frantic breaths, trying to calm herself and push away a fresh round of tears. "Sorry, I don't know why I keep going to pieces," she said once she'd gotten control of herself.

"It's okay," Luke said, patting her hand gently. "We're all shaken up, even Lorelai, and she was never Jess' biggest fan."

Something like a smile flitted around the corners of Rory's mouth as she shook her head. "No, she isn't," she agreed. "Did you manage to contact his mom?"

"Nope, Liz and TJ are on the road with the Faire," Luke said, an expression of distaste settling subtly around his mouth as he said the word "faire."

Rory nodded. "Alright, I guess we'll have to... try calling them again, right?"

Luke shrugged. "Liz will find out sooner or later. It's probably better that she's not here, actually. She doesn't do too well with hospitals. We can try contacting her once we have some news."

"Right."

A few moments later, a resident approached them. "Family of Jess Mariano?"

Luke nodded, standing up. "That's us."

"He's awake," the blonde woman said with a smile carefully calculated to be reassuring without giving false hope. "His system is still somewhat in shock from the pills, and for awhile Dr. Freidman was concerned that he might have sustained liver damage, but we got to him in time to prevent any long-term injury. He should be back to normal within a month- physically, at least. He will obviously need psychiatric counseling, but medically speaking he'll be quite alright."

"Thank god," Rory whispered, twisting her hands in her lap.

"You can see him, if you like," the resident said, flashing green eyes down at Rory. "But I'd ask that only one of you go into the room at a time; too many visitors at once may be too much for him to handle right now, emotionally speaking."

Luke glanced at Rory, who gave him an encouraging nod. "I guess I'll go in, then," he said, still looking quizzically at her. She made a slight shooing motion with one hand, and he turned to follow the young woman down the hall.

* * *

Jess gave Luke a half-smile when he entered the small, off-white hospital room. "Hey, Luke," he said. "They dragged you down here, huh?"

Giving him an irritated look, Luke pulled up a chair to Jess' bedside. "Something like that," he replied. "How you feeling?"

"Like I've had all my insides sucked out and put back in the wrong way," Jess said, shrugging. His uncle didn't know how to respond that, simply leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. After a long silence, Jess sighed. "Okay, whatever it is you want to say, just spit it out."

Luke gave him one last long look, then dropped his gaze to his hands. "Why'd you do it, Jess?"

"Figures," Jess mumbled. "It was... it was stupid, okay? I was drunk, I wasn't thinking clearly. It's not something I plan to try again, that's for sure."

"You didn't answer my question."

He sighed again, moving his eyes away from his uncle to stare at the ceiling. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. "Rory came to the open house," he said.

"I know. I saw her there."

"She stayed after everyone else had left," Jess explained. "I thought maybe she... no, I don't know what I thought. I should know better, after all this time, but I guess I'm just stupid. We, um... we kissed. And then she was kind enough to inform me she's still in love with that rich bastard at Yale, and left. I went out, got drunk off my ass, and you know the rest." He appeared to have attempted to keep a monotone, but there was a resigned bitterness in his voice that even Luke could pick up on.

Luke stared at him. "Wow," he said. "After all this time, you still...?"

"Yeah," Jess replied, still fixated on the ceiling.

For a few minutes, they both sat in silence. As Luke digested the revelation of just how deep Jess' feelings for Rory ran, he seriously debated the wisdom of his next statement. Whatever Jess said, Luke could see that his nephew was fragile, more so than maybe even he knew and certainly more than anyone but those who knew him best could see. Maybe it wasn't a good idea for him to know... but after weighing the possibilities, he eventually decided that openness was the best policy for everyone in Jess' life right now.

"She's here, you know," he said.

Jess' entire body visibly tensed, though he kept on staring right at the blank white tiles above his head. "Huh," he said, and the syllable conveyed far too much meaning.

Luke nodded. "Yeah. She's real messed up, Jess. I don't think she's had dry eyes since I got here."

"Fuck," Jess muttered.

After another brief hesitation, Luke asked, "Do you want to see her?"

At last, Jess turned to look his uncle in the eyes. "Am I a raging masochist if I say yes?" he asked.

Luke shook his head. "Nope."

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**A/N-** I had a bit of a hard time with this chapter, but I'm actually extremely pleased with how it turned out. Tell me what you think!


	4. Keen

**Author's Note**- Again, I want to thank all of you for taking the time to read this. I'm so proud of it, I actually got up off my butt and contributed something meaningful to the FFn community besides anonymous reviews!

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4. Keen

* * *

Matthew and Chris arrived just as Luke was walking away, and Rory gave them a wary look. The sandy-haired young man approached her with a sheepish look on his face. "I'm told I owe you an apology," he said. "Sorry I was such an ass. I know you're worried too, and you wouldn't have... whatever... if you knew this would happen. I'm just pissed, you know? Jess is really important to us. He's like... the glue that holds Truncheon together. We were just a couple of losers with a printing press until Jess got off that bus."

Rory nodded, giving him a wavering approximation of a smile. "Apology accepted," she said. "And I'm really glad he has friends like you who care about him. When I first knew him, he didn't have _anybody_. Luke was the first person to really give him a chance, and I was the only one who thought he'd take it. It's good to know he has someone watching out for him." As her own words stirred up a fount of memories- _Jess bidding on her basket... Jess reassuring her, during a night drive, that she could achieve her dream... the feel of Jess' lips against hers... his hands cautiously exploring her body... Jess giving her a secret smile he had never shown to anyone else_- her eyes welled up with tears _again_.

"Oh jeez," she hissed, irritated with herself for not being able to keep it together for more than five minutes at a time. "I just can't seem to stop! I promise, I don't cry this much all of the time."

Chris shrugged. "Hospitals are depressing," he said, offering her an easy excuse.

She nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so," she replied, tacitly grateful.

* * *

Luke emerged quite a long time later, and his face was grave. Chris stepped forward from where he'd been leaning against the wall, and Matt leapt from the seat next to Rory. The shell-shocked brunette remained sitting and stared up at her almost-stepfather. "How is he?" Matt asked immediately.

Running a hand through his notably hat-less hair, Luke said, "He's... physically alright. Sleeping again, right now. There's still a lot of crap in his system or something like that." He shot a glance at Rory, and looked (if that were possible) even more uncomfortable situation. "He... uh... he said he wanted to see you before you head back to Stars Hollow."

"Okay," she said, willing herself not to tremble with nerves. What the heck was she supposed to _say_ to him? Jess had tried to _kill_ himself over her! What could anyone possibly say in response to that? "I...'ll go in there once he wakes up."

"I think you could probably go in now," Luke said, looking anywhere but at her. It comforted Rory to know that she wasn't the only one struggling to come to terms with this.

"Thanks," she said. She wasn't sure why. Rising to her feet, she walked down the hall, trying very hard to keep walking in a straight line. She had shed too many tears today; dehydration and emotional duress were making her dizzy.

She entered Jess' room with a sense of huge trepidation. She didn't know which would be more of a relief- if he was awake, so she could get what was sure to be an emotionally wracking and uncomfortable conversation, or if he was asleep, leaving her with too much time alone with her feelings (those unnamed, suppressed feelings that had scared her so much for so long that tonight, for all the obvious reasons, were refusing to stay more than half-hidden).

It turned out that he was still asleep, just as Luke had said, and perhaps that was better. Rory gazed down at him, and felt her heart break a little more. His face was sallow, and his eyes had such prominent dark circles beneath them they appeared bruised. He looked sad and unhealthy and very, very small. She brushed a tuft of dark hair out of his eyes; on an impulse, she leaned over him and dropped a soft kiss on his forehead.

He shifted a little in his sleep, and she could have sworn his expression relaxed slightly. He looked so fragile, like a little boy. Had he really done this to himself because of her? Because she was too afraid of getting her heart broken again to take a chance with him? Because settling for Mr. Good Enough was easier than admitting that she'd never really gotten over him?

And there it was. It had been in the back of her head, but as long as she hadn't studied it too closely, she could pretend it wasn't. She could pretend that his aftermath wasn't still echoing in her actions. Everything she'd done since she met him had been dictated by him. Even after he'd left, her hurt had sent her into a tailspin that started with seeking comfort from Dean and ended with her stealing a yacht and dropping out of school. And then he had fixed whatever it was he had broken. Coming back, he had healed the breach he had created, and she had done the rest over the intervening months. He was the only person she'd ever met who had this kind of power over her. He was the only one who could save or destroy her with a few words.

Was this love? She had no idea. For all she knew, it was just the shock of this night. Maybe tomorrow in the daylight her feelings for him would be comfortably stowed away behind locked doors again. If they weren't, though... Well, that would be a pro/con debate for tomorrow. All she knew for certain right now was that she was irrevocably tied in one way or another to the fate of the boy (she had lately been thinking of him as a man, but right now he looked so small and young that she could only think of him as a boy) in the hospital bed before her.

For half a second, she was furious with Jess for once again wrenching her out of her comfort zone. Then she looked at his face, and knew it wasn't worth her anger.

It was all too much for Rory, and she sank down in the chair by Jess' bedside, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears _yet again_.

What was wrong with her? She had never been the type to go to pieces at the drop of a hat! Not that Jess'... current situation... was nothing, but except for that one visit a few months back, she hadn't seen him in over a year. This wasn't normal; she didn't think she'd _ever_ cried this much consecutively, and a part of her wondered hazily if her tear ducts would eventually dry out. Every time she managed to catch her breath, though, she would take another look at Jess' wan face, and the waterworks started all over again...

* * *

What felt like a very long time later, Rory was slumped over in her chair, trying to stifle yet another crying jag, when she felt cool fingers stroke the back of her hand. The touch sent jolts of electricity up her arm, and she jerked upright, staring at Jess. He was awake, and gave her a tired, forced smile.

"Hey," he said, and his voice sounded weak.

"Hi," she replied, managing to keep her voice steady, even though her heart was breaking yet again to see the barely concealed pain in his eyes. She scooted her chair a little closer to him, subconsciously wanting to find a way to make that look go away.

Jess reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. "What's this?" he asked, holding up a damp fingertip.

"This is me freaking out," she admitted, not meeting his gaze. It was easier to stare at his forehead instead, and avoid the painful eyes. "You really scared me, Jess."

"Sorry," he mumbled. But it didn't sound completely sincere. After that, neither of them seemed to be able to find anything to say. When more than a minute had dragged by in the uncomfortable quiet, Jess spoke: "So, are you going to ask?"

Rory risked meeting his eyes. "Ask what?"

"Ask why," he explained. "Luke did, and the hospital shrink did. It's only a matter of time before you do, too."

She could feel a slight blush rising in her cheeks in embarrassment and a series of complicated emotions that flicked by too quickly to properly acknowledge. "Matt and Chris seemed to think it was... because of me," she asked, her voice tentative and containing a question.

He didn't respond verbally, but his eyes, as they had always done, gave her all the answers she needed.

"Oh Jess," she said with a heavy sigh. "You were supposed to be okay! You were supposed to be able to forget me! I mean, it's been three years!" She wasn't sure if she was speaking to Jess or to herself.

"Believe me, I _know_," he said bitterly. "Please don't feel sorry for me. I really don't want your pity."

"I don't pity you!" she exclaimed. "I'm kind of mad at you, actually. I told you before, you're way stronger than that. You were supposed to be okay and move on with your life. Even if you didn't get over it right away, you were supposed to move on, because if _you_ could, then maybe _I_ could, too! As long as you were okay, I was okay!"

Jess shook his head, expression tightening visibly. "Don't say that," he said, closing his eyes as if in pain. "Don't put all that on me, too. I..." He sighed. "Look, Rory, I'll be fine. Last night was... more a mistake than anything. Partially accidental."

Rory gave him an incredulous look, and suddenly anger was rushing up in her. She was furious with him for scaring her like this, for being so damn stupid, for not just getting over her in the first place so it was okay to forget him! She just managed to pull it together and keep her expression something closer to neutral than what she was actually feeling. "How is taking an entire bottle of pain pills accidental?" she demanded.

"I was alone. I was in pain. You know how everything seems like a great idea when you're drunk? I was just trying to find a way to make it stop hurting for awhile. Dying wasn't supposed to be part of the equation."

She scrutinized him for a second, then shook her had. "Nope, I don't buy it," she said certainly. "You might put that one over on everybody else, but you can't fool me. I bet Luke wouldn't believe it, either."

Jess visibly fell back on his old habit of avoidance. "Whatever," he mumbled, looking away.

It hurt. Being shut out, just like when they were kids, hurt more than she remembered. This was her fault, after all; didn't she have a right to understand so that she could find _some_ way to fix it? The anger she had been feeling neared a boiling point, and Rory knew that all the emotions and exhaustions of the day were catching up to her. She was going to boil over if she didn't get away from him right now.

"Maybe I should go," she said quietly.

"Maybe you should," he agreed, eyes fixed firmly on the wall across from him and his voice low and disinterested.

She abandoned the chair and with one last look at him, she walked out the door.

* * *

If that was the end of their story, it was the most pathetic ending ever, Rory decided as she threw back another shot of tequila. She had always thought thought that when she and Jess finally ended, one way or another, it would be something explosive. Something conclusive and final and certain, something that they could never back out of or recover from. Maybe that was why they kept being drawn back to each other? Because they both sensed that they were supposed to go out with a bang, not a whimper? Either way, they still never said goodbye.

"Hey, Ror, I think maybe you should stop now," her father said, placing his hand firmly over hers as she reached for a fourth shot. "You might be of age, but just barely. You shouldn't be getting smashed at your best friend's wedding."

Rory sighed and plastered on a smile. "Yeah, I know," she said. "It's just been... a really long day."

Christopher seemed to see through the mask she'd been wearing all day in a moment of perception. "You want to talk about it?" he asked.

"About what?" she responded in what she hoped was an offhand tone.

"About whatever happened to make you look like we're at Lane's funeral, not her wedding."

She couldn't deny that nothing was wrong, but at the same time... "No, I really don't want to talk about it."

Christopher gave her a small smile and caressed her hand gently with his larger one. "Alright then, kiddo, what do you say to us getting your mother home before she does anything else to horribly embarrass the both of us?" Despite herself, Rory shot a glance at her mother and couldn't help but laugh at her current antics.

"That sounds like an excellent idea, Dad."

* * *

Lorelai was slumped over in Christopher's arms as Rory opened the door for him to carry her into the house. "Get her over to the couch," she instructed.

"Boy, I must say, when your mom does something, she really commits," Christopher joked.

Rory gave him a Not Amused look. "Just prop her up," she said dryly. "I'm going to make some coffee."

Her father gave her a dubious look. "Uh, you know hon," he said, "If the two gallons we poured down her throat at the wedding didn't do anything, I'm not sure what two more cups will."

She sighed, but she was actually feeling better than she had all day. Dealing with her mother's drunkenness was something to take her mind off the events of yesterday (though not completely- a part of her was still dwelling heavily on the subject). "Hey, no one knows how to wrangle the full powers of the coffee bean like a Gilmore. Just prop her up. She hates to get pillow face," she said, only partially kidding.

"Pillow face. Right."

Rory removed to the kitchen and set about preparing the coffee. Just as she was settling the filter in place, however, her cell phone rang. "Hello?" she answered absentmindedly.

"Rory? It's Colin!" came the frantic voice on the end of the line.

"Colin?" she asked, suddenly paying close attention. "What's the matter? Why are you calling?"

"It's Logan," he responded. "He--" The connection, already fuzzy, cut out for a moment. "--The cliff, and the damn parach--" Again, the line buzzed with static. "--n't open."

Despite the gaps in his sentences, Rory caught the gist of what he was saying. "Oh my god, is he okay?" she asked.

"We don't know," Colin said sadly.

Rory waited for it. She waited for the moment when all the air would disappear from the room and the world would fall out from underneath her and she would feel like she was drowning. She waited for the helplessness. She waited for tears. She waited for the terror and the panic and the feeling like a part of her physical body had been ripped right out of her.

But it didn't come.

_What?_

_

* * *

_**A/N2-** And that's that, folks! I would have posted this earlier today, but I wanted to do one final edit before I uploaded it. Thanks for all your reviews and comments, they really inspire me to write more stories soon. The final chapter will be posted Tuesday (earlier if I get enough feedback!), and a sequel will be forthcoming.


	5. Speak

**A/N-** There is now a playlist for this song on Playlist. com, with a breakdown by chapter. The link is in my profile. Feel free to check that out, and thank you all for your support!

This fic in its entirety is dedicated to my beloved aunt. R.I.P. Lorraine, we love you and miss you!

* * *

5. Speak

* * *

_Three Weeks Later..._

Jess pressed his face deeper into his pillow and debated getting up. From the angle at which the sun was hitting him, he could tell it was already well into the morning, and Luke's habitual early rising had rubbed off on Jess. Lying around in bed wasn't his style (well, not anymore, at least; his teenage years were another story). And anyway, it looked too much like moping. He was determined to convince his severely overprotective roommates that he was well enough to go back to "regular" work.

In the two and a half weeks since he'd been released from the hospital, Jess had been on "forced leave" at Matt's behest. He was supposed to be writing. _"You said writing _The Subsect _helped you get over your teenage angst, right?"_ the neurotic young man had reasoned. _"Maybe writing some short stories or starting a new book will help with... well..."_

That was, perhaps, the most infuriating part of the whole debacle, in Jess' opinion. Everyone was tiptoeing around him as though he were going to shatter at any moment, and no matter how many times he assured them that he was fine, they didn't seem to believe him. He understood why, obviously, but it was still irritating. Because he _was_ fine. He wasn't _good_, but he was okay. He wasn't about to go slitting his wrists or anything. He'd told the truth about that much- the suicide attempt was a drunken, one-time deal. It seemed incredibly surreal to him. At times, Jess couldn't believe he'd actually done it.

He was still feeling depressed, though. The hopelessness and loneliness he had been feeling that night were still very much present with him. A whole lifetime without Rory was too long. Yes, he had Matthew and Chris and even Luke. Friends and a father-figure, though, still left this empty place in his life. They couldn't fill the hole she had left in him.

It sucked.

Jess kept replaying their last conversation in his head, and he did again as he got up and slouched in the bathroom to take a shower. She had looked shocked and broken and small. He had pushed her away yet again. He didn't regret that- it was self-defense. But she had left, and that was that. Nevertheless, she had given him a look as she walked out of the cramped hospital room that said that maybe that _wasn't_ that. He didn't know what that look had meant, but it had shaken him (more than he already had been).

All he was sure of was that, once again, they hadn't said goodbye. It was becoming a pattern with them. The only time he had ever said goodbye to her, and vice versa, he had already been planning on going back to Stars Hollow, so it hadn't really counted. That was actually the thing he had held onto in the hospital, when he was still struggling to pull himself back together; the fact that once again, they had left themselves an opening for the next time.

Holding onto _anything_ of her was foolish, and he knew it. He was just setting himself up to have his heart smashed to pieces yet again. But he couldn't stop himself.

* * *

Jess was just pulling a clean T-shirt on when a loud knock resounded through the apartment. Curiously, he headed for the door, wondering who could possibly be up here at this time of day. Matt or Chris would have just used their key, and they likewise would have intercepted any deliveries intended for Truncheon. He pulled the door open.

Rory stood in the doorway, staring at him. She was turned half-away, as if she'd been planning on making a break for it before the sudden opening of the door halted her in her tracks. Her blue eyes were huge as she looked up at him. The phrase _deer in headlights_ drifted across his mind.

For a very long three seconds, she stared at him. Then letting out a little breath halfway between a gasp and a sigh, she launched herself at him, seizing his face between her hands and kissing him fiercely. Shock rolled through him and he responded automatically, hands tentatively finding her waist and lips moving with hers. But as the reality of the situation sunk in, he knew he had to stop or it would break him.

Hands on her shoulders, he pushed her gently away. "Don't do this to me, Rory," he said, hearing the roughness of his own voice. "Don't make me think you're here for me and then take it away. I can't--"

"No!" she interrupted quickly. "I... I had intended to talk to you, to explain, but then I saw you and I just... couldn't help it."

"Okay," he responded warily, not sure what she was talking about. "Come in." He stepped aside to allow her into the apartment.

She looked around as he shut the door, a little smile on her lips. Then the expression fell, giving way to a worried frown and she nibbled on her bottom lip nervously. "I'm not really sure how to begin," she said quietly. "I've had the entire drive from Hartford to figure it out, and I still don't... know how to say this."

"So just say it," he advised, more irritably than he'd intended. Couldn't she just spit it out and go and leave him to his misery?

"Logan almost died," she blurted out. What? What did that have to do with anything?

"Two weeks ago," she continued. "His parachute didn't open, and apparently it was a really tall cliff and there were rocks and things and... um... well, I was fine. I mean, obviously I was worried. I'd be the most awful person in the world if I wasn't, you know, worried about him. But in the back of my mind, I knew I'd be fine if he d-died. Well, obviously not _fine_ fine, but I'd survive and I'd be able to get on with my life."

Still in the dark about how any of this pertained to him, Jess gave her the blankest expression he could muster up. "Good for you," he said dryly. "What does that have to do with you turning up in Philadelphia out of the blue and kissing me?"

Rory gave him a sad smile, the one that never failed to break his heart because of all the looks she ever wore, it was the one that betrayed the most pain. "Jess, when you were in the hospital, I was terrified," she explained. "After I heard the news, I cried all the way to Philadelphia, and again while we were waiting for you to wake up, and after you fell asleep, and all the way back to Stars Hollow, and a little bit at Lane's wedding, too. I haven't been that scared or that worried _ever_. If you had died, I don't know what I would have done!

"But when _Logan_ got hurt, I was okay. I didn't cry. It was awful, of course, but... I could still breathe. That made me take a really hard look at myself." She took a deep breath, as though steeling herself for something. She drummed her fingers nervously against her thighs and avoided his gaze. "It made me realize that... well, the truth is, I've been scared, for a really long time. I've been finding guys who don't really have the power to break my heart, because that's not something I want to ever have to go through again. But there's a problem with that- even if I can fall _in_ love with men like that, I can't also_ love_ them. Do you see the difference?"

Jess thought maybe he did, but he was too busy trying to figure out where the hell she was going with this rambling monologue to do more than give her a cursory nod, anything to keep her talking so that she'd just get to the point already! Against his will, a bloom of hope had been created in him, and he would rather that it be killed now, instead of drawing it out over several minutes and allowing it to grow that much more painful when it finally was crushed.

"When I left you, that night at the open house, it was just supposed to be _my_ heart I was breaking, don't you see?" she said. "It wasn't supposed to mean anything to you! I guess we all know that was wrong, but... I thought you were over it. I thought I was the only one who was too stupid to let go of whatever this absurd thing between us is."

He was flabbergasted- that was really the only word for it. He still didn't know where she was going with this, and he wasn't sure whether he should be joyful or depressed, but either way she was standing here, saying things that made no sense to him. Jess reacted the only way he knew how. "You have a boyfriend, Rory," he said, coldly indifferent.

She shook her head, brunette curls swirling about her shoulders. "Not anymore," she said. "Why do you think it took me three weeks to come here? Maybe drawing it out was cruel, but breaking it off with Logan when he was in that condition would have been much worse. I knew that no matter what happened with you and I, I couldn't stay with Logan anymore. It wouldn't have been fair to him."

Lost for words, Jess just nodded.

"The truth is, Jess, no matter what I try to do, moving on isn't helping me get over it. Nobody else compares to you, no one ever has. I'm done closing my eyes and pretending that everything is fine with my life when it's so obviously not. I'm done running from what I want because it's scary. Yes, you broke my heart once, but I guess I broke yours, too... You'd think we'd figure it out by now that all we ever do is hurt each other. But, I don't know. I kind of think maybe it's because neither of us has the guts to be honest about what we're feeling, because rejection would hurt too much. So this is me, pouring out my heart and saying that if it's not too late, if I haven't messed up too badly... I want to give us another shot. "

Was it too late? There was a lot of hurt and history between them. There had never been anyone who had put him through the kind of emotional pain that Rory had, and that was saying a lot, considering his childhood. But he had also never experienced moments as beautiful as the time he'd spent with her. There was no question- he wanted this. It was all he'd ever wanted.

"I really hope you mean that," he said slowly, hands finding her waist again, "because I'm going to kiss you now."

Rory beat him to the punch and pressed her lips to his. As her arms twined about his neck and her fingers buried themselves softly in his hair, he could feel her smiling against his lips, and felt his own lips twitch upward in response. After an endless moment, they broke apart, foreheads resting together and both of them breathing a little more heavily than normal.

"This is a good thing," Rory said quietly.

"Yeah," he responded, equally softly. "We'll get it right this time."

Even though he knew that there were still issues- and lots of them- to work through between them, somewhere deep inside him he knew that this was what they'd always left that opening for next time for. This was what it had all been building up to. Years of neither of them being ready at the same time, years of heartache and anger and not speaking to each other... it was all for this. This was their last, best chance. And despite the problems they'd have to face to make it work, Jess was going to try his damn hardest to finally get it right. And if the look of tentative joy on Rory's face was any indication, she would, too.

* * *

**A/N2-** Thank you all for your continued support! I have loved hearing your feedback. I have a sequel for this planned, but I don't know when I'll begin posting. In the meantime, I have a couple of short stories planned for the near future.


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